Top Web UX Design Guidelines

The most important usability findings for improving website ROI, based on thousands of user studies worldwide

Understanding people's online behavior gives you insight into designs that work and don't work. Discover the most important guidelines for making your website easier and more enjoyable to use. Then learn to apply these usability principles to design challenges to create products that benefit the business and users.

This course builds a strong knowledge base for attendees who are newer to usability and Web design. For attendees who already work in the field and have some existing knowledge, this course offers the chance to validate your assumptions and get research data to support them.

"Incredible course with very contextual and tactical feedback when designing for different use cases ... provides real (good and bad) examples of how things should be done."

Andrew Hill
Deloitte Consulting LLP

Topics covered

Usability principles to help you prioritize your efforts and spend resources more effectively

Recommendations based on empirical research data from Nielsen Norman Group

Behavioral characteristics of web users

General behavioral patterns and expectations

People's reaction to different websites and design elements

Considerations for new and existing users

Designing for active vs. passive user participation

Factors affecting people's decision to stay or leave the site

Best practices for designing key pages such as homepages, category pages, and article pages

Building loyalty through usability

Factors that enhance credibility

Fostering a loyal user base

Balancing user and business goals

Navigation mechanics

Creating workflows based on user scenarios

Browsing and searching mechanisms to help people find information

Presenting interactive components with proper visual cues

Layouts and formats

Layouts that match scan patterns

Scrolling behavior and strategies for encouraging people to scroll

Visual presentation

Communicating with illustrations and graphics

Images people pay attention to

Visual elements that people ignore or misinterpret

Content usability

Online reading patterns and how to plan for it

Considerations for reading levels (43% of US population read at low literacy levels)

Increasing readability and comprehension

Trends and innovation

​When to follow guidelines and standards, and when to break them

Creating delightful experiences

Format

This course mainly lecture-based with a few group exercises to reinforce the learned principles and guidelines.

The course also includes:

Findings from our own usability studies, including eyetracking

Videos from usability testing of people's behavior in response to a design

Screenshots of designs that work and don’t work, and why

Opportunities to ask questions and get answers

Attendee Feedback

"I really enjoyed this class because it helped to validate issues and topics my team has been working on. Examples and videos clearly illustrated the main points."

"So interesting to see how users look through sites of what grabs their attention or turns them off. Good to see so many real life examples with testing. A very informative and helpful course."

"If somebody is looking to increase conversions or have faithful and happy customers this is the course to take."

Instructor

Kathryn Whitenton is a Senior User Experience Specialist with the Nielsen Norman Group. She works with clients to evaluate the usability and information architecture of websites in a variety of industries including technology, telecommunications, and media, as well as corporate intranets. She has conducted usability research, eyetracking user research, and studies of users on mobile devices in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Her user studies have included general audiences as well as specific consumer types, business segments, children, and seniors. Read more about Kathryn